Hypertension, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, insulin resistance, diabetes and metabolic syndrome represent a significant and growing global health issue. Current therapies for these conditions include non-pharmacological, pharmacological and device-based approaches. Despite this variety of treatment options, the rates of control of blood pressure and the therapeutic efforts to prevent progression of these disease states and their sequelae remain unsatisfactory. Although the reasons for this situation are manifold and include issues of non-compliance with prescribed therapy, heterogeneity in responses both in terms of efficacy and adverse event profile, and others, it is evident that alternative options are required to supplement the current therapeutic treatment regimes for these conditions.
Reduction of sympathetic renal nerve activity (e.g., via denervation), can reverse these processes. Medtronic Ardian LLC of Mountain View, Calif., discovered that an energy field, including and comprising an electric field, can initiate renal neuromodulation via denervation caused by irreversible electroporation, electrofusion, apoptosis, necrosis, ablation, thermal alteration, alteration of gene expression or another suitable modality.
Catheter-based intervention is widely used for medical treatments where access to a location in the body is obtained, for example, through a vessel of the cardiovascular system. Medtronic Ardian LLC has shown that an energy field can be applied to the sympathetic renal nerves from within a renal artery. The renal artery has features unique from other vessels or parts of the body and thus applying an energy field to the sympathetic renal nerves from within the renal artery is not trivial. Accordingly, a need exists for a catheter capable of effectively delivering energy to the renal sympathetic nerves from within a renal artery, where the catheter is better configured to i) navigate through a renal artery with reduced risk of applying traumatic force to the artery wall; ii) precisely place an energy delivery element at a desired location on the vessel wall; and iii) maintain stable contact between the energy delivery element and the location on the vessel wall during blood flow pulsatility and respiratory motion of the renal artery.